Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Oh Pedro...

El Toro is the hot topic of the 2012 Pittsburgh Pirates season. I really haven't felt the need to write about him seeing as to how I'm pretty sick of hearing about him myself....but I guess I'll weigh in.

Man. You shouldn't have changed your number Pedro.

#17 Pedro

#17 Alvarez 2010- 95 games, 16 homers, .256 AVG, .788 OPS

#24 Alvarez 2011- 74 games, 4 homers, .191 AVG, .561 OPS

Yuck.

This spring- 16 ABs, 2 homers, .188 AVG, .750 OPS

The spring sample size is tiny, I know, and I would take it with a grain of salt even after a full month. He has just three hits this spring, which is horrible with 16 at bats, but two of them are homers. Watching some of these games, Pedro seems to be hitting the ball pretty hard. Luck always plays into baseball, and he might be a little bit on the unlucky side this spring.

With that though, are his five strikeouts. Five strikeouts in 16 plate appearances probably needs to improve.

Another issue is his walks, or the non-existence of them. Yeah...there are none. It's probably hard to walk when you are struggling at the plate as much as Pedro has been. That's why pitchers rarely walk, it's better to throw three meat balls down the plate than it is to give a pitcher a free pass. Similar situation to Alvarez. Pitchers would rather give Pedro meat balls than walk him. That's where Alvarez has to take advantage. He can definitely hit a fast ball, he just needs to do it with more consistency.

Whether you like it or not, I know I sure don't, the entire 2012 season rests squarely on Pedro's shoulders. No doubt about it. There are other players in this organization, but they really don't mean much if Pedro ends up in AAA by May or June.

McCutchen is not the Pirates clean up hitter. We saw him try to make up for the lack of power in the Pirates lineup last year when the Pirates were trying to win the division, it didn't work out for either the Pirates or Cutch.